Commentary›MG‹ is short for ›monogold‹. The initial ›M‹ refers to the artist’s so-called ›monochrome‹, which he first exhibited privately in 1953.Despite the high price of gold leaf, Klein succeeded in producing ca 40 monogold panels between 1959 and 1961. Diverse application of the gold creates lively surfaces, frayed or compressed, furrowed or smooth and ephemeral. Klein acquired the technique for gilding when working for the London frame-maker Robert Savage in 1949/50. Experiments with gold leaf by an architect friend of his, the special place and use of this metal in Japan and its great symbolism in religion and alchemy doubtless inspired the artist further. In 1957, Klein exhibited eleven blue monochromes of the same format in Milan, which he described as distinct and which were offered for sale at different prices. While (potential) buyers protested, his artist colleagues who were also present, including Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana, applauded. Two years later Klein began to sell »zones of pictorially immaterial sensibility« as invisible artworks, giving specially conceived checks as receipt of purchase. These documents were sold for gold. Klein thus took up the theme of indefinable, non-quantitative values in art very early on.

Provenance1973, Galerie Thilo Liemersdorf, Essen

Obj_Id: 3,356

Obj_Internet_S: Highlight

Obj_Ownership_S (Verantw):Painting, Sculpture, Media Art

Obj_SpareNField01_N (Verantw): 187

Obj_Creditline_S: Gemäldesammlung

Obj_Title1_S: MG 28

Obj_Title2_S:

Obj_PartDescription_S (Titelerg):

Obj_SpareMField01_M (Alle Titel): MG 28 MG 28

Obj_Dating_S: 1960

Jahr von: 1,960

Jahr bis: 1,960

Obj_IdentNr_S: G 395

Obj_IdentNrSort_S: G 0395

Obj_Classification_S (Objtyp): Painting

Obj_Crate_S: 95 x 76 cm

Obj_Material_S: Gold Leaf on Cotton on Plywood

Obj_Technique_S:

Obj_SpareSField01_S (Mat./Tech.): Gold Leaf on Cotton on Plywood

Obj_AccNote_S (Erwerb): Acquired in 1973 with support of the Land Nordhein-Westfalen and the Eugen-und-Agnes-von-Waldthausen-Platzhoff-Museums-Stiftung